By Patrick Macias

SOME PRODUCT! The new R1 Message From Space Blu-ray comes out next week (9/27) from Shout! Factory Exclusives. Limited to 1000 copies. I co-wrote the liner notes with August Ragone and I personally scanned pretty much everything in my voluminous Message From Space archives for the photo gallery. Essentially, this is an HD port of the previous Shout! Factory DVD, but it’s nice to have on Blu-ray, especially as no R2 counterpart exists in Japan. Plus, that Engligh dub tho. Order via Shout! Factory’s website.

My webcomic Hypersonic Music Club, which I write and Hiroyuki Takahashi draws, is a thing now and we have several (!!!) anime industry and licensing people looking at taking it to the next level. But now is sort of a crucial time where we have to show traction / buzz / interest. If anyone wants something killer cool to hang on their wall, you could actually spend a few bucks on this and I will kiss you on the astral plane!

Tease + title reveal for my upcoming web comic collaboration with Hiroyuki Takahashi… He draws, I write, you get HYPERSONIC. Spoiler for deep readers: although radically different in style and content, this will be the second part of the Mystery Frequency saga following Paranoia Girls. More in early 2015.

Paranoia Girls launched a few weeks ago and we are three pages in. English and Japanese versions are available. All hail artist Yunico Uchiyama for making my psychedelic suburban surrealist daydreams a semi-reality.

I fulfilled a freelance fantasy of mine and started writing for MTV81. My latest piece for them is on THE BLOCK PARADE's epic all night club event. Read here.

Features art by Yunico Uchiyama with translation and a lot of behind the scenes support by the incredible Marie Iida. We will be updating the main story bi-weekly and posting apocrypha and related artifacts whenever we find them or the Extra Dimensional Reality Archive can be bothered to loan them out. So yeah, here we go…

Yet more concept art from my upcoming collaboration with artist Yunico Uchiyama. I write, he draws. I haven’t come up with an English title yet, but it will be called「パラノイア·ガールズ」in Japperknees. Characters Laura (left) and Larissa (right) depicting a second stage transition into Extra Dimensional Reality (EDR). Again, online later this summer….

Hey, now! My new thing Crunchyroll News, AKA CrunchyNews, is live. It's an anime-manga-Japanese pop culture news and aggregator site developed by the Crunchyroll guys. I'm the site director and chief editor. Other news writers include Joseph Luster (Otaku USA), Scott Green (AICN Anime), Mikikazu Komatsu (Ultimo Spaleen), and Gregory Lanson. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @crnews for the latest developments and updates! In the meantime, I'll continue to edit Otaku USA magazine and do other freelance work...

ITEM! I've begun writing / doing a monthly column for media contents company NISSEN INC's new iPhone and iPad app: a "TV Guide" styled publication called Terebi Bangumiran「テレビ番組欄」. My column is named "OTAKU ga yorokobu nihon eiga" or "Otaku who enjoys Japanese movie" (which is about as good a description of my daily existence as any). The first outing covers Daiei's DAI MAJIN and YOKAI films. The one I'm working on next is all about YOJIMBO and SANJURO.

I'm one of the contributors to a feature called 日本の名作[海外珍訳・誤訳]コレクション in the 12/19 - 1/5 issue of SPA! magazine on sale now in Japan. "Interesting translations" of Japanese pop culture are on the table and I talk trash about the US version of the Ponyo theme and fire up the way back machine for similar offenses committed in Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers. There are also some pictures of large breasted women, politicians, and race cars inside so check it out...

Nipponia is a free magazine published in multiple languages by Heibonsha given away at Japanese embassies around the globe. Inside the new issue (46, for those of you counting) is a profile piece in which I am formally charged with the heinous crime of...

Surely there are others more worthy of the blame, but here is my mug shot taken in my preferred seating spot in Nakano Broadway, playing "monsters" with a vintage Marusan Kanegon and something limited-edition from Godzilla Final Wars. But I'd give it all up to be Baolimo Lombo (below), who was born in the Congo, who now gets to work at the LaOX Duty Free in the AKB...

The September issue of STUDIO VOICE is a super-sized special with a cover feature on former YMO and Happy End musician Haruomi Hosono. There's a long interview with Hosono himself, along with testimonials from the likes of Maki Nomiya (P5) and Tadanori Yokoo and a look at his production and soundtrack work which extends into anime like Night on the Galactic Railroad and EX MACHINA. Also included: a conversation between Toei sexploitation king Norifumi Suzuki and Machine Girl helmer Noboru Iguchi...and last but not least, my monthly Paranoid States of America column!

Also, I never be writing fo no Kinema Junpo publications before, but I finally slipped through the cracks to contribute to their Yoshiaki Kawajiri Madhouse Plus 02 book (01 was about Satoshi Kon). My chapter is on the popularity of the Ninja Scroll writer/director in the USA and how he all blew our minds with that shit back in the day. Tomo Machiyama translated while Gilles Poitras and Daryl Surat were interviewed for this piece which I guess I'm sorta proud of!

My Speed Racer blow-out is featured in today's Re:view section of the Japan Times. Interviewed: Ippei Kuri; Speed's co-creator and founder of Tatsunoko Pro, and Peter Fernandez; mastermind behind the US version of the show.

Various versions and incarnations of APPLESEED: EX MACHINA go on sale on home video in the US today. I'm featured pretty heavily in the extras included on the Blu-ray and the two-disc set talking trash about a whole lot of stuff in the basement of Other Cinema. Also among the mighty heroes who come catapulting out of your television set are Carl Horn (who I appreciate taking the the effort to put copies of Ikegami-Kokie's Starving Man in the frame) and brand spanking new OTAKU USA contributor Gilles Poitras.

What I remember about the filming: weird audio problems caused by the unseen-but-real Mole Men who live under 992 Valencia street. The cameraman saying that the basement looked like the inside of a U2 spy plane. Col. Baldwin eating a bento.